A woman in Barnaul has received a three-year suspended sentence for tricking elderly victims into buying ordinary laser pointers she claimed were medical gadgets, regional prosecutors said on Friday.
For three years the 41-year-old woman, a former history teacher, passed herself off as a doctor, pressuring pensioners into buying a gadget that "heals all illnesses," investigators said.
The retirees paid between 1,500 and 6,000 rubles ($47.7 - $191) for laser pens that cost about 50 rubles. Police have identified 27 victims of the scam.
The woman also robbed several of her victims. Police estimate total financial damages at 500,000 rubles ($15,900).
The Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported that the woman had lived in Kazakhstan and Yakutia, but moved with her husband and daughter to Barnaul.
Aside from running her scam, she also wrote scholarly texts for students and schoolchildren.
The woman pledged to repay the damage, but said she could not remember all of her victims
